Fundraising for two life-sized faux bronze statues to be placed at the Tuskegee Airmen Memorial Plaza at Freeman Municipal Airport in Seymour recently kicked up a notch.
Tim Molinari and his father, also named Tim Molinari, have received a good amount of money in a short period of time.
The elder Molinari said those funds greatly helped cut into the $88,000 project to honor the group of African-American military pilots and airmen who trained at the former Freeman Army Airfield and then went on to fight in World War II.
He estimated around $15,000 is still needed.
“Everything just kind of seemed to happen almost at once. Odds and ends, pieces here and there all of a sudden just came together,” he said. “It’s amazing. You think that we’re at a dead end, and all of a sudden, the word gets out and then donations start to come from places I didn’t think were possible.”
The most recent was $6,915 from the Seymour Redevelopment Commission.
During a meeting Aug. 23, commission member Bonnye Good said the grant committee spent a lot of time discussing the Tuskegee memorial application and had some questions answered by Molinari before making the recommendation to the commission.
“We feel very strongly we need to be very careful to follow our mission,” Good said before making the recommendation, which will fund lighting, plaques and contingency fees.
“We believe it’s a great project,” she said. “We love that they are working with the airport on this, and we know it’s got a great value with history and tourism and education.”
Commission member Nate Otte wasn’t present at the meeting, but he submitted a letter stating he supports the initiative and the amount recommended, and that was read by President Mark Dennis.
Good said the committee’s only suggestion was for the Molinaris to continue working with other entities to finish raising the funds.
“We have been working hard on the project and put a lot of time and sweat and effort into it, and we are getting close to putting all of the funding together,” the elder Molinari told the commission.
He said the goal is to get the fundraising done as quickly as possible this year and then install the statues in the spring of 2022 and dedicate them in the fall of 2022.
“We want to get as far away from COVID as we could,” Molinari said of choosing to hold off on the dedication until later next year.
That will include an appearance by the RISE ABOVE traveling Tuskegee Airmen exhibit, a 53-foot semitrailer from Minnesota that people walk through and learn about the Tuskegee Airmen.
“We’re going to be able to put through about 1,000 schoolchildren during the day and about 500 members of the public through it at night over the course of that week,” Molinari said. “It’s in a 53-foot semitrailer that has movable sides to accommodate about 30 people at a time in there for about either a 15- or a 30-minute presentation.”
The Molinaris also recently received a $3,500 Heritage Support Grant from the Indiana Historical Society for a historical marker commemorating the 1945 civil rights protests by Tuskegee Airmen at Freeman Army Airfield.
The initiative is supported by a grant from Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment. The grants are used to meet needs in collections stewardship, diversity, equity, access and inclusion and sustainability and planning.
The elder Molinari said the historical marker commemorating what was known as the Freeman Field Mutiny will be placed in front of the Freeman Army Airfield Museum on A Avenue at the airport. In April 1945, a group of Black officers entered a club at Freeman Field for white officers and were refused service and arrested. That incident led to the eventual desegregation of the U.S. military.
The Molinaris also recently received nearly $3,500 from the Duke Energy Foundation. They have applied for other funding opportunities and hope those come through, too.
The younger Molinari became interested in the Tuskegee Airmen while working on his Eagle Scout project.
In 2015, he created the memorial plaza at the airport. After the dedication, Molinari said someone mentioned the idea of putting two life-sized statues of the Tuskegee Airmen at the plaza flanking the monument.
The Molinaris then began pitching the idea for the statues and received financial support from Tuskegee chapters across the country and a donation from a foundation in Washington, D.C.
In February of this year, the Molinaris announced they had raised a little more than half of the money needed for the project. The statues cost around $66,000, while the remaining costs are to pay for shipping, installation and recognition plaques and fund the weeklong dedication activities and state historical marker.
One of the statues will depict a Tuskegee airman in his flight gear to represent the defense of the nation, and the other will be a Tuskegee airman in an officer’s uniform to represent the discrimination they faced.
About a month ago, the Molinaris went out to Utah to do some climbing and also had an opportunity to meet the sculptor. One is in the Styrofoam and clay form, while the other one is just beginning to be constructed.
“There are so many processes,” the elder Molinari said. “It starts with Styrofoam, and then it goes to clay, and then there are some wax processes and some other types of things. … It really does take about three-quarters of the year to put these things together.”
Until recently, a majority of the funding had come from outside Seymour, so the Molinaris are appreciative of the recent local and state money received.
“Thank you very much, you guys, for your support,” the elder Molinari told the redevelopment commission. “That means a lot.”